Angus King

This is the most complex and dangerous world that any of our experts in the intelligence community and the military have seen in their careers.

The letters I am getting from people all across the Commonwealth of Virginia... who feel like that basic trust has been broken.

The problem with the Federal budget is health care costs--Medicare, Medicaid, pensions, health care costs across the board.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thanks for having this hearing.

There is no way to run this Government without reforms to the entitlement programs.

It is as if after Pearl Harbor we invaded Brazil. It is the wrong target.

We need entitlement reform, we need some revenues, we need cuts.

I just--I think if you buy something in bulk, you can usually get a better deal.

This whole situation as a newcomer is extraordinary.

I have not yet heard anybody say a good word about the sequester in this building for the past 6 months.

Early childhood education is probably one of the best investments we could make.

The problem with the debts and the deficits is not Head Start. It is not Pell grants. It is not the national parks. It is health care, period.

I am interested in improvement, not elimination.

Attacking Head Start when the real problem is health care is like invading Brazil after Pearl Harbor.

I will try to be very brief.

Cutting spending generally without dealing with the health care cost is like invading Brazil after Pearl Harbor.

The sequester was designed to be stupid. It was designed to be unacceptable as an alternative, therefore forcing the Super Committee and the Congress to come to a more reasonable alternative.

I, too, believe programs should work.

The primary goal there is to reduce the deficit by about $2.1 trillion.

I realize I am almost out of time, but my only disagreement with that would be if we only focus on the entitlement Medicare, then all we are going to do is shift the growing health care cost to somebody else.

I would argue we do not have a spending problem; we have a health care problem.

My concern is that by using this explosion of Federal expenditures based on health care to cut things like defense and nondefense discretionary spending is like attacking Brazil after Pearl Harbor.

It seems to me that a way to discuss this is to try to identify what is the sweet spot in terms of percentage of GDP for both revenues and expenditures.

What is the appropriate role for Government in these areas? And I just do not see that, again, paying for everybody's retirement is an appropriate goal.

It seems to me that this has been a fascinating and important discussion, and there is an important issue here that you guys can help us with.